Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Professor Michael Asten of the school of geosciences at Monash University, Melbourne writes in today’s Australian that CO2 has a diminished role in global warming and points to non man made factors as drivers of changes in climate. In other words forget the IPCC and its pseudo science models and unfalsifiable “projections” and let’s get on with the real observational science.

Prof Asten writes,

“The Copenhagen climate change summit closed two weeks ago in confusion, disagreement and, for some, disillusionment. When the political process shows such a lack of unanimity, it is pertinent to ask whether the science behind the politics is as settled as some participants maintain.

Earlier this month (The Australian, December 9) I commented on recently published results showing huge swings in atmospheric carbon dioxide, both up and down, at a time of global cooling 33.6 million years ago.

Some senior scientists, who are adherents of orthodox global warming theory, do not like authors publishing data that can be used to argue against orthodoxy, a point made by unrelated authors with startling clarity in the Climategate leaked emails from the University of East Anglia.”

It is interesting that Prof Asten sees fit to mention the Climategate leaked emails. Refer to yesterday’s blog entry for more on that matter.

He goes on to cite one of several recent studies.

“... as Pearson and his colleagues pointed out in their letter two weeks ago, "We caution against any attempt to derive a simple narrative linking CO2 and climate on these large time scales. This is because many other factors come into play, including other greenhouse gases, moving continents, shifting ocean currents, dramatic changes in ocean chemistry, vegetation, ice cover, sea level and variations in the Earth's orbit around the sun."”

Note to the IPCC; so the science is settled by a so called “consensus”? With more and more scientists coming out of the closet it is obvious the UN/CRU people really need to get out more. Of course I know they are busy fighting police and university investigations at the moment but when it’s all over take a break and get some air and talk to other scientists rather than corruptly trying to get them sacked or gagged. Who knows, maybe they’ll learn something.

It is very fortunate indeed that Tony Abbott stepped in at the last minute and saved us from a taxing regime, at least for now, that would ruin the Australian economy when all the while it would be based on a false premise that CO2 was a significant force for global warming. If correct of course the renders the models upon which the IPCC relies useless for both predicting future climate based on CO2 in the atmosphere and for setting policy. The whole IPCC process would be proved to be a sham. I wonder how the vested interests of the climate industry including the hoodwinked politicians and the CSIRO will be spinning this – they have their reputations riding on this and there is a lot at stake. We live in interesting times.

Geomap

About

This blog is a about Anthropogenic Global Warming(AGW) which is global warming caused by the activities of man. The core issues are:

- Is the climate warming,- Is the warming outside of historic norms- Is it caused by anthropogenic CO2- Will it result in global disaster as the IPCC insists

Only the first has been satisfactorily answered in part and the qualification is that the data upon which the IPCC claims are based has not been made available for full scrutiny as yet. The average terrestrial land temperature experienced slight warming this century. In some regions such as Antarctica it has cooled. The earth has been recovering from the Little Ice Age since 1650 (see Akasofu 2007 & 2009) which is one reason this warming trend is expected. It appears that this is not outside of historic norms (see Medieval Warm Period) and that the IPCC and some scientists have attempted to downplay the Medieval Warm Period and the effects of the Little Ice Age. The later two issues are not settled despite UN and government spin towards the contrary. For some excellent background from a real climatologist not implicated in the recent CRU revelations see the links to Dr Roy Spencer's blog below who discusses these issues as a professional.

Australia Joins China and Iran in Net Censorship - Nanny State Cometh

Pearls of Wisdom & Otherwise

Glenn Reynolds (USA - Instapundit.com): "I'll believe its a crisis when the people who tell me it's a crisis start acting like it's a crisis."

Nick himself (Counting Cats in Zanzibar blog): "Is it just me or has the spam-trade been entirely taken-over by performance poets on Arts-Council grants?"

Dr. Kiminori Itoh (Phd UN IPCC Scientist Award-winning environmental physical chemist): "When people know what the truth is the will feel deceived by science and scientists."

Dr. Stephen Schneider (Stanford professor of climatology, Lead author on many IPCC reports, in an interview with Discover Magazine 1989): "We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest."

Former US Vice President Al Gore (now, chairman and co-founder of Generation Investment Management- a London-based business that sells carbon credits, in an interview with Grist Magazine 9 May 2006 re his book An Inconvenient Truth) "Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous (global warming) is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are..."

World Climate Widget

Items of Note

New readers may be interested to peruse two of my earlier posts concerning the Fear of Global Cooling which was popular in the late 1970's. I have posted a copy of a Newsweek article together with comments here and here.